My Most Important List

A surprising and humbling lesson from a gourmet food magazine.

I admit it. I like to cook (this is actually of great benefit when you have a large family and lots of guests). I like to eat (of less benefit but it certainly impacts my desire to cook). I like to pore through cookbooks and magazines looking for recipes and culinary inspiration. I even have a website devoted to easy gourmet kosher cooking.

Yet all that said, I would balk at being called a “foodie.” I’m not that particular about what I eat and I couldn’t spend my life “In Search of the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie” (there is a cookbook by that name, I promise).

So I was particularly appalled to read the editor’s letter in a popular cooking magazine recently. In referring to her need for lists (with which I empathize – and the older I get, the more I need them!), she said “The new year starts for me the most important list of all.”

I was wondering what her resolution would be. It doesn’t matter the time of year or the forum. It’s always good to make decisions about growth and change. It’s always good to work on ourselves and try to improve, whatever the catalyst. And since it was a food magazine, I expected something about dieting and healthy eating, not quite as lofty as ridding ourselves of impatience and anger, but not irrelevant either. The body is the house for the soul and the Torah admonishes us to watch over our bodies – eating and exercising appropriately.

But her list, her most important list of all: “The food experiences I’m looking forward to having in the next 12 months.”

Yes, she does edit a food magazine, but still…it made me sad. Does she have a family? Since they didn’t make it on to her “most important” list, where do they fit? And how do they feel about it?

But it’s too easy to see the mistakes that other people make. They are so clear to us. We could live their lives so much better than they are. But what about us? Where am I making the same mistake? What’s my “most important” list? And does it reflect my true priorities? And, even more crucially, what do my actions say?

Do I talk a good show about giving to others (at least I’m smart enough not to write my distorted priorities in a national magazine for everyone to see!) but spend no time actually doing volunteer work? If I do volunteer work, am I doing what’s truly needed or what’s socially popular? Do I complain about “the rich” not giving back and then spend my own (limited) discretionary income on clothing (read: shoes) instead of charity?

Do I pontificate vociferously about how important teachers are and then delay paying tuition, or dismiss that as a potential vocation when my children talk about their future plans? Do I rant and rave about what family means and then spend every night out at a social function? Do I tell my children it’s their character that counts and then yell about bad grades? And speaking of yelling, do I beg them not to raise their voices to their siblings and then scream at them to get into the car?

When I first read this magazine item, I laughed. I was scornful and contemptuous. But upon further reflection, I’m humbled. I’m making new lists – and, even better, I’m making a plan about how to put them into action. My lists need to reflect my true goals and my actions need to be consistent with them. A push to growth is available almost anywhere we look. Who knew it would come in the guise of a gourmet cooking magazine? I can’t wait for next month’s issue…

About the Author

Emuna Braverman has a law degree from the University of Toronto and a Masters in in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis on Marriage and Family Therapy from Pepperdine University. She lives with her husband and nine children in Los Angeles where they both work for Aish HaTorah. When she isn''t writing for the Internet or taking care of her family, Emuna teaches classes on Judaism, organizes gourmet kosher cooking groups and hosts many Shabbos guests. She is the cofounder of www.gourmetkoshercooking.com.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 2

(2)
Anonymous,
December 23, 2010 9:57 AM

Excellent!

Thank you Emunah. This was excellent. By the way, did you grow up in Toronto? So did I.

(1)
susan yakobi,
December 22, 2010 9:04 AM

Gourmet kosher cooking

Very, very true. However, as soon as you get into "gourmet" kosher cooking, it would seem to mean that regular, healthy and nutritious food is no longer enough - it has to be "gourmet" necessitating investments in time and money that might better be used to loftier, spiritual purposes......

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I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!